Purpose

To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

South Pasadena Celebrates Death of 710 Surface Route and Impending Sale of Caltrans Properties

But in a news conference honoring Sen. Carol Liu, Mayor Richard
Schneider warns that Caltrans is “extremely stubborn and intransigent.”

Sen. Carol Liu, third from right: "Caltrans did the right
thing—they don’t want to be in the rental business, they’re in the
freeway business and that’s what they want to stick to."

The
City of South Pasadena on Tuesday recognized
the successful passage of Senate Bill 416 after what Mayor Richard Schneider
described as “a long,
long journey.”

Authored by state Sen. Carol
Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown Oct. 1, the bill
paves the way for the sale of 587 properties that the California Department of
Transportation owns along the “710 gap” in South Pasadena, Pasadena and Los
Angeles, where transportation officials are studying a 4.5-mile tunnel between
the 710 and 210 freeways.

In a city news conference held
at a spacious Caltrans-owned Craftsman-style house on 1110 Glendon Way, Liu thanked opponents of the
710 “for being in the fight for so long” and remaining there because it’s far
from over.

“The
next process is working on the rules by which the homes will be back on the
market,” Liu said. “And so it’s really important that those who do occupy these
homes go to the [Caltrans] meetings and workshops
to find out what’s going on and to express their concerns because we don’t want
rules to be written that are so prohibitive that people can’t buy these homes.”

The first of two workshops aimed at creating procedures for the sale
of Caltrans properties is scheduled Wednesday, Oct. 23, from 6 p.m. to 8
p.m. at the El
Sereno Senior Citizens Center, located at 4818 Klamath Place, 90032. The
second
workshop will be held on Thursday, Oct. 24, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at
Ballroom C
of the Pasadena Convention Center, located at 300 East Green St. in
Pasadena,
91101.

Tuesday’s
news conference began at 3 p.m. in front of a house that Liu said has been vacant
for 10 years because Caltrans raised the property’s rent, thereby forcing its tenants
to move out.

The
good news, Liu noted, is that “there will no longer be a freeway coming through—We’ve
put that to rest. But there might be other alternatives—we don’t know what they
are.”

Pasadena
Mayor Bill Bogaard, who at the news conference along with Assemblymember Chris
Holden, one of the co-authors of SB 416, said that while the bill’s passage is
a happy occasion, “there’s still work that needs to be done in regard to the
60-year controversy over extending the 710.”

Caltrans’
proposal to extend the 710 by building a tunnel is unacceptable to the people
of Pasadena, Bogaard said, prompting much clapping and applause from the small
audience that had gathered for the conference.

“We
all have to turn that project aside and I look forward to and am grateful for
the continued commitment from all of South Pasadena and the new commitment from
many people in the region,” Bogaard said.

Mayor
Schneider thanked Liu and Holden for shepherding Senate Bill 416. South
Pasadena, he said, needs to continue working with its senator and
assemblymember “until the promise of this bill is realized.”

The
710 surface freeway is “dead—and we’re extremely happy,” Schneider said,
prompting another round of clapping. But he cautioned that Caltrans is
“extremely stubborn and intransigent” and that “it takes real nerve to ignore
the spirit of the law that was signed by the governor.”

The
mayor was referring to news reports that quoted Caltrans as saying it wouldn’t
sell any houses along the 710 Gap before 2015 and before the department
finishes its environmental impact report on the 710 extension and selects an
alternative to the surface freeway route.

“That’s
another reason why we have to continue working with our neighboring cities as
well as our assemblymember and state senator,” Schneider said, as his four
colleagues on the South Pasadena City sat on chairs to his right side. (Liu and
Holden were seated to Schneider’s left.)

“It
is with extreme arrogance that an entrenched bureaucracy like Caltrans can say
something like that—that they will ignore the spirit of the law,” Schneider
said, referring to the reported foot-dragging by Caltrans on the issue of house
sales.

“Caltrans
is a semi-immortal state agency that thinks elected officials are short-timers—and
to a certain extent we are,” Schneider said. “But the fight goes on—whether we
are here or one of our successors is here.”

Meanwhile,
in Sacramento on Tuesday, Gov. Jerry Brown appeared before the media to talk
about the 710. “This 710’s been a problem since the first time I was governor,”
ABC7 Eyewitness News quoted him as
saying. “So, hopefully, before I have to run again we’ll get it solved.”